As I promised, going to do a news story, and free-write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the news story, there’s this<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, with my tenuous health, and the state of the economy, these sorts of things have been of great interest lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve been dumping money into my 401(k). And what I wanted to write about just now I deleted, because I might not be allowed to disclose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will say that I’m not old enough to qualify for any of the “catch-up” provisions in tax law, so it’s kind of forcing me to do things on my own apart from the “normal” ways of doing things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As if there’d be anything different in my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a chunk. I’m not sure how long I could ever hope to live on it. I think probably some sort of long-term disability is more likely, honestly. What I have now would be more than I was earning not terribly long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even before the MS diagnosis, I was probably only looking at a lifespan of 65 years. MS, when you take a look at the actuarial numbers, takes ten years off your life. So that puts me likely dying before I’m able to tap anything without significant penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did listen to something interesting a few weeks ago that really changed my way of thinking about “investments.” Putting money into stores of value<\/a> is not trying to get growth; it’s just trying to keep the value from going away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other words, I’m not planning to get rich off Tesla stock. Maybe next week, that’ll have appreciated a lot more than an ounce of gold or silver; what will it be worth ten years from now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same can be said for other things like real estate. Even if a big crash happens, it’s not going to be worth zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n